My Application Portfolio for Art Center College of Design and OTIS (feedback please)

I am an 18 year old art student and I am very new to digital painting but I come from a background in fine arts. I wish to learn different techniques and broaden my horizons; so please give me your feedback, I would greatly appreciate it.

my first thought is: "thats it?"
you say this is your Application Portfolio for Art Center College of Design and OTISand you feel that 2 pieces of unfinished artwork is enough?

my second thought is: "wow, this guy is LAZY"
these 2 pieces aren't even halfway finished. they look like thumbnail sketches that you scaled up real big. if you had 200 of these sketches, each one with unique armor, weapons, nationalities, body types, male/female, etc., and took 10 of them and flushed them out to full on finished pieces, then i MIGHT consider this as acceptable.

if i worked at otis and you brought me this as your portfolio, i'd seriously think one of my co-workers was playing a prank on me.

what you've posted here reminds me of a story a friend told me once:
he was taking a class to learn how to do the trapeze. he showed up, and was in the middle of his lesson when a 300 lb woman showed up to take the same class. they all stopped to listen in on what was going on because it was such a ridiculous situation. this woman seriously thought she'd be able to get up there and do the trapeze. they didn't want to offend her by telling her she couldn't do it because she's too fucking fat, so they desperately grasped for straws, tried to think of a million OTHER reasons why she couldn't do it... in the end there were none.
they did the test to see if she could hold up her weight by her arms alone and she passed... then they strapped her into the safety harness and got her up onto the platform. she grabbed the bar, swung out, and promptly dropped off into the net and didn't want to try again.

my point: you're the fat lady.
you are completely clueless as to who and what you are.
im not going to be the staff members at the trapeze school and tell you these pieces are great, go ahead and submit these pieces, good luck i hope you get in.
no, im going to be the asshole that tells you to put some fucking effort into your work man. open you eyes dude, LOOK at your work. just LOOK at it, and YOU TELL ME if you think someone at an art college would consider you with this. just take a look around this website, look at the art that is out there, other people just like you that are competing to get into otis or other art colleges. look at their portfolios and seriously ask yourself "are these 2 pieces of mine as good as theirs or better? is my work so outstanding that they're going to choose me over them?"
if you can honestly say yes? then i cant help you. no one can.

if you say "ya know... he's right... i need help"
then you need to set up a daily sketchbook and draw every day, update it every day. find a place to do life drawing, study anatomy, perspective, etc.
i would also say get away from photoshop for right now. take a sketchbook with you everywhere and just draw from life.

The Following User Says Thank You to TheDirtSyndicate For This Useful Post:

I'm not going to be as rough with you as Syndicate, but you really should honestly think about taking some entry level community college art classes to prepare yourself and build a few portfolio pieces.

Thank you all, especiall DirtSyndicate. I take all your comments into heart. I will get on that right away. And no I don't think you're being an ass, and I also respect that you take pride in being truthful. But to be completely truthful to you, Dirt Syndacite, my teacher at The Art Institute of California - Los Angeles: Hormozi Marjan of Slade School of Fine Art says the same.. but much much harsher (she is amazing though, as a person, teacher, and artist). I enjoy taking all sorts of critic and using it to build myself.

These were just thumbnails and I deserved all that. I intend to keep posting though, so I hope all of you continue to keep an eye out for me and guide me towards the correct path of Conceptual Art.

Any tips though? I am completely new to Digital Painting and could really use some techniques.

Firstly, get your tradition skills down-pat, like Syndicate said. I'm kinda in the same boat at you, about a year on, still learning The first thing that will make your paintings look great and stand out, is to be able to draw in a traditional medium, be that pencil, chacoal, or paint. Get a mate to model, or if ya got the money, go to a life drawing class. Sit in the city and draw buildings and streets to get perspective, learn about proportions and foreshortening etc etc.
Also, experiment with colour, pastels, watercolour and inks are great for this. Do some quick sketches, and chuck some colour on them, learn what works, what emotions different colour combinations create.

And while you're doing all this, if you're set on being a digital artist, get to grips with your program.
Find tutorials, videos and stuff, all over the internet. Spend time creating small pieces, pieces that are driven to experiment and learn, not pieces of art. Gradually these will become art.

Also, if you haven't got one already, get Wacom tablet! Though that may be obvious

Hope this is helpful!

I'm still learning as well, and could give you some links and stuff if ya want.
I'll PM you this as well and you can contact me if you want

The Following User Says Thank You to Faceface1991 For This Useful Post:

Tip for digital painting: Don't use the grass brush in photoshop. For that matter, don't use the "scattered maple leaves" brush either. They're so obvious and make you look lazy. You'll learn a lot more if you think it through and render the grass yourself.

When you post something online, don't do it so big - reduce the size first so people can easily see the whole thing at once. I can barely tell what I'm looking at when I have to scroll down two screen lengths to get past a picture.